Five Ways to Simplify Entrepreneurship For First Timers

Starting your own business is no cakewalk. It takes months if not years for the average business to pick up and start making money. If the lack of a consistent paycheck wasn’t enough, there are also legal considerations to keep in mind including copyright and trademark laws and shipping policies. To help first-timers navigate their way across a new commercial entity, here are five ways to simplify entrepreneurship:

Straighten Out Your Personal Finances

Problems in your personal finances can affect your business finances as well. Shortage in funds to pay the rent or utilities can force you to take money from your business’ reserves, which can cripple its ability to grow. Before you start a business, clear your name off of any debt by paying off your outstanding credit cards, student loans, and mortgages. Open separate accounts for your business and personal funds, even if you are operating as the sole proprietor of the entity. Straightening out your personal finances will also improve your credit score, which lowers the interest rates of your business loans.

Build an Online Presence

It’s much simpler to focus most of your marketing resources and efforts into building a digital presence. A digital presence is far more powerful these days than any physical marketing campaign you can pursue. Write informative and engaging content that is tailored to be search engine optimized for better placement and visibility within search engines. Use the services of an SEO Colorado Springs expert to help optimize your content. Building an online presence also entails having a dedicated website. This helps you manage traffic more efficiently by putting all your business data in one easily-accessible platform. A FAQ page, for instance, can simplify the process of educating new viewers and leads by making the answers available 24/7.

Write a Single Page Plan

You don’t need a hard-bound 100-page business plan to succeed. In many cases, a one-page plan is sufficient. Keep things simple and expenses at a minimum when writing your plan. Remember, your plan will most likely change over time as you encounter new market challenges and realities. Your single page plan should outline what your vision is, what your mission is, and how you plan to acquire customers. The latter is perhaps more important as it determines your sales and revenue forecasts, which is a key metric that investors and VCs look for.

Find Your Co-Founder

Find a co-founder as soon as you start a business. It’s much easier to deal with problems and collaborate about potential ideas if you have someone else to talk to about these things. Having a co-founder also lets you share the psychological load including the daily stress and pressures of running and building a business. Find a co-founder who is as passionate and driven as you are. Moreover, they should be able to complement your strengths and weaknesses and bring something to the table, whether it’s firsthand industry experience or resources. An even better source of guidance and support is a mentor. Having a mentor guiding you each step of the way not only simplifies entrepreneurship for you, but it also accelerates growth and progress.

Divide and Conquer

Divide the high-level tasks from the low-level ones on your agenda. Sometimes, the supposedly simple workload you have can be bogged down by minute details. For instance, when dividing the marketing-related workload, you should segment it into smaller pieces that are easier to digest. Afterwards, you can further split it into smaller subcategories that shine more light into what needs to be down without losing sight of the broader aspects.

Final Thoughts

As a final piece of advice, prepare yourself mentally for the frustration and stress that are both attached to starting a business. There will be countless moments of failure and rejection, but if you acknowledge it right from the start, it will have minimal impact to how you operate your business on a daily basis.

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